From the Rector

Dear Friends,

Because it ties in in significant ways with the theme of this issue, (and because of the lower attendance on the Memorial Day weekend!) I repeat here my sermon from May 29, 2005, the Second Sunday of Pentecost.

- Stephen

BUILDING ON THE ROCK

The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it
had been founded on the rock.

I can never hear those words of Jesus without thinking back to an unusual time in the life of this parish and of this very church building - the summer of 1991. For 11 weeks, although services continued in the chapel, the main morning service was held at University Presbyterian down the street because it had become necessary to replace the church floor. What an undertaking that was! The pews were all removed and stored, of course, making the church look cavernous, and the wood floor was taken up. While we had intended to reuse the original sub-floor, we discovered on exposing it that it had provided substantial nourishment to generations of termites! So that explained why the floor had felt so springy under our feet! Talk about building on sand....

The question for the vestry at that point was whether to authorize another wooden sub-floor at no small cost or for an additional $5,000 to put down a concrete slab. Mindful of the wisdom of these Gospel verses, they chose the latter. I will never forget the morning the first of many cement trucks arrived. It pulled up to the curb on Franklin Street, and a giant hose-like appendage several feet in diameter and long enough to reach all the way across the yard to the church and inside all the way up to the east wall was attached to its mixer. A disciplined crew of workmen with a foreman barking precisely-timed orders handled this cumbersome dispenser, heavy with yards and yards of wet cement flowing through it. Working carefully and determinedly together, they lugged and aimed this sea serpent-looking device from side to side and ever backward as it spewed out the bulky contents of truck after truck. Any mistake would have had lasting consequences! But they got just the right amount in all the right places, and once the slate was laid down over it, we knew that our church rested on a firm foundation for generations to come.

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock." This simple metaphor of Jesus conveys in story form some basic life truths. The first is that what we do now has significant consequences for later. The choices we make each day, the priorities that we adhere to, the values that we intentionally embody, will have significant effects, not only now, but in the future. Intentionally or not, we are all "building houses," whether those be of our academic formation or our character or our family life or our careers or our friendships or our contribution to the community. As a parish we are forming our children and our youth and ourselves in the faith. We are engaged in the habit of worship. We are starting a new congregation. We are strengthening ministries of hospitality and local and global outreach. We are planning to provide the facilities and staffing needed for the future. All of these individual and communal projects, if you will, are under construction. The efforts and the attention we pay to them now will have not only present but lasting consequences. If we approach them with the selflessness and the zeal and the dedication and the humility and the love of God and of neighbor that Jesus asks of his followers, we will indeed build those houses on the rock, houses that will withstand the storms life inevitably brings.

A personal example comes to mind from my early family life. About five years old, I was shopping with my mother at our corner market, the precursor of today's convenience stores. While my mother was checking out, the bright individually wrapped bubble gum caught my eye, and unbeknownst to her, I innocently helped myself to a piece! As we were driving home, my mother suddenly took notice and asked me, "Where did you get that gum?" "In the store," I replied matter of factly. "No," she said, "We don't take what we don't pay for." She turned the car around (no power-steering in those days!), drove back to the store, gave me a penny, and instructed me to give it to the grocer. It was a lesson that obviously made a big impression on me and was a major part of my moral foundation. Whether for ourselves or others, the choices we make now have significant future consequences.

A second major life truth conveyed by Jesus in this story is that storms and floods are part of everyone's lives. They are certainly not a sign of God's disfavor but an inevitable element of living a finite, temporal existence. Notice that both the wise man who built on rock and the foolish man who built on sand endured the same hardships. In both cases, Jesus says, "The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house." Following Jesus and patterning our lives after his teaching and his example does not protect us from storms coming our way. Our lived out faith helps us within the storms and sustains us against their force and their terror. But it does not exempt us, in the Prayer's Book's words, from "the changes and the chances of this life." In fact, following Jesus may bring more storms our way than we would have encountered otherwise. If we do persevere in resisting evil and proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ and strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being, opposition and conflict will surely come our way, as our brothers and sisters at St. Luke's in Durham have rediscovered this month.

But if we have built on a firm foundation, if we have made Jesus the center of our lives and not ourselves, if our houses have been constructed out of integrity and love and dedication on the rock of Jesus, they will not fall. The rain and the floods and the winds will not destroy them, but God's grace will sustain them.

We do not manage that alone, of course.Like those who stood on the earthen floor below this church 14 years ago and with great effort and dedicated cooperation worked together to accomplish lasting good, so we as fellow Christians must support one another and move together in cooperative unity to achieve those tasks and construct those buildings that will stand the test of time. As we do so, God himself will be with us, and we will have built on a firm foundation for generations to come.

Vestry Actions - May 19, 2005

At its May meeting, the vestry:

• Authorized Ted Vaden, Chair of the Next Step Committee, Terry Eason, and the wardens to enter into and execute a letter of agreement with Hartman Cox Architects for drafting a master plan for the parish hall, classrooms, and offices, at a cost not to exceed $100,000 for projected architectural fees, consultant fees, reimbursable fees, and other associated fees, these funds to be expended from Undesignated Gifts and Memorials
• Learned that an additional pledge has taken the annual giving campaign over its targeted goal
• Updated the authorized signatures on the parish accounts with the Vanguard Group and Edward Jones accounts.

Progress Report of the Next Step Committee

Ted Vaden, Committee Chair

Maybe you've heard rumors about Chapel of the Cross building a new parish hall.

The reports, as I so often observe in my own work, are premature and exaggerated.

It is a fact that the parish's Next Step Committee has engaged a design consultant to prepare a master plan for the parish facility. But we are a long way from designing a building, constructing anything, or launching a capital campaign. And before we move closer to any of those prospects, we'll give parishioners ample opportunity for input and communication.

In fact, that's the purpose of this article - to communicate to you the committee's progress to date.

First, a little history. The Next Step Committee is the outgrowth of the parish Long-Range Planning Committee, which presented recommendations to the vestry in May 2004. In September, the vestry created the Next Step Committee to coordinate and oversee implementation of the long-range plan.

The plan made recommendations in three areas: worship, program, and facilities. In the area of worship, the Next Step Committee has looked to the rector's Liturgical Advisory Committee to consider recommendations such as adding new services, offering alternative services, and other possibilities.

In the program area, the Next Step Committee has looked at two areas: making the church a more hospitable place and reviewing parish programs to consider whether they are serving the mission of the church and whether new programs should be added or old ones dropped. Separate subcommittees are working on both of those areas. Barbara Day and Mary Schoenfeld are co-chairing the hospitality effort, while Nancy Tunnessen is leading the program review.

Most of the Next Step Committee's efforts, then, have focused on the issue of facilities. The conclusion of the Long-Range Planning Committee, after two years of study, was that space for fellowship, offices, and classrooms are inadequate for the present, much less for the future. The recommendation was either to add on to the existing non-worship space, or replace that space entirely with new facilities.

The Next Step Committee spent extensive time reviewing possible options. We made site visits to five churches in four North Carolina cities to look at fellowship halls employed successfully by other churches. We met extensively, on average twice a month, from November through May. Out of all that effort, we concluded that the best interest of the parish would be to create a master plan that would use design professionals to analyze our existing space and advise us on the best way to accommodate our needs for the future to the space opportunities, and constraints on our site.

Over the course of the spring, the Next Step Committee interviewed five design consultants at length, viewed examples of their work in person and on paper and made an assessment of the firms' comparative strengths and weaknesses.

Out of that process, we came to the unanimous conclusion that the firm of Hartman-Cox Architects, of Washington, D.C., would be the best match for the needs of the Chapel of the Cross. Hartman-Cox is a nationally respected medium-sized firm that specializes in contextual design, i.e., planning design around the existing facilities of the client, especially buildings of historical character. Among their works are the recently completed addition to the Duke Divinity School, the National Humanities Center and, in process, the Morehead Planetarium addition. Other works are St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Washington, several historic buildings at the University of Virginia, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Hartman-Cox's proposed fee and expenses are $91,620, and the vestry has authorized up to $100,000 for the work. That is an expensive commitment, we recognize, but one that we feel is fair and appropriate to the quality of work we seek. Of the five bids that we received, it fell in the middle of the cost range. Payment will come from the parish's
undesignated gifts and memorial reserve funds.

Hartman-Cox proposes to conduct this work over a period of three to three-and-a-half months, probably concluding by the end of 2005. The work will involve multiple visits to Chapel Hill, interviews with staff and parishioners, and at least one full meeting/presentation with the parish. The final product, a master plan, will include various written reports, elevation designs, a study model, and a site plan.

The master plan will be just that - a plan for the future facility needs of the Chapel of the Cross. It will be the starting point for any physical improvements that we choose to make in the future.

Just as important is what the master plan will not be. It will not be a detailed architectural plan for a specific building. That could ultimately flow from the master plan, but the master plan is a conceptual design matching our program needs to our space, not a technical document. It also will not be a capital plan or fund-raising campaign. That would come only if the vestry chooses to embark on a building project, and that would come only after extensive consultation with the parish.

In the meantime, the Next Step Committee intends to consult broadly with you, the members of the parish, during the master planning process. Your input is key to its success, and we hope you'll join us in our excitement and enthusiasm for this exciting project, so important to the future of our parish.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me or any members of the Next Step Committee. Their names and contact information are listed below.

Paul Carew - pcarew@nc.rr.com

Martha Dill - mdill@chccs.k12.nc.us

Terry Eason - tbe105@aol.com

Barbara Schütz - jschutz@nc.rr.com

Rob Sullivan - sull017@bellsouth.net

Ted Vaden - tvaden@nando.com

Robert Wright - rwright@alumni.duke.edu

John McGee, Treasurer, ex officio - mcgee.j.r@mindspring.com

The next step committee report: Vestry responses

Jim Crow, Senior Warden

The leadership of the Next Step Committee has met with the vestry on three occasions: in a focus session that was held prior to the April vestry meeting, at the May vestry retreat, and at the regularly scheduled vestry meeting in May.

The leadership and vision of the committee have been truly outstanding. Their initial recommendations and considerations across the three areas (Worship, Program, and Facilities) that were addressed by the Long-Range Planning Committee have been focused, thoughtful, and prayerful. An appreciation for the historical context of our parish and a commitment to be faithful stewards of our resources have been paramount in their moving forward to effect our long-range goals.

A personal observation: it is not unusual that committees demonstrate significant inertia as an initial response to a new charge or challenge. Inertia has certainly not been characteristic of The Next Step committee and its subcommittees; an extremely high level of momentum has been demonstrated from its beginning; there is no indication of change in this respect.

Two important general concerns have been expressed by the vestry in response to the initial reports of the Next Step Committee: communications and integration.

Communications: Recognizing the sensitivities that accompany change (especially all that goes with challenges accompanying change in an environment full of Episcopalians), the vestry and committees are committed to stimulating and maintaining open dialogue within the parish. This process has already begun with presentations and discussions in the adult education hour on June 5. Future presentations and conversations will be frequent and timely. Seminars (as in adult education), publications (as in Cross Roads and special published updates), conversations with the parish (as in those held on the subject of gay unions), and open vestry meetings will be used as means of engaging the parish in the decision-making processes. As with any dialogue, a most important part is not what is said but what is heard. The vestry and committees are committed to listen carefully, prayerfully, and thoughtfully to all suggestions/ideas and to respond accordingly.

Integration: Integration of activities to acquire resources should the parish elect to move forward with improved and expanded facilities was frequently discussed. The vestry is committed to an integrated, thoughtful approach in identifying resources both within and outside the parish that are required to insure the future health of the parish over the next 20 years. If/when appropriate, activities supporting a capital campaign, special projects, and annual giving will be carefully and prayerfully considered and fully integrated.

In summary, the Next Step Committee and its associated sub-committees should be congratulated for their energy, leadership, and vision. They and the vestry are committed to being faithful stewards of our resources, to communicating openly and frequently with the parish, to listening thoughtfully and prayerfully to the parish, and to integrating the activities that result from these efforts.

The next step committee report: stewardship implications

Steve Lackey, Junior Warden

Over the past several years, the vestry of the Chapel of the Cross has given considerable attention to long-range planning for the parish and, most recently, the recommendations of the Next Step Committee. The hard work of many parish leaders has brought to light new opportunities for improving and growing our parish programs and facilities. As stewards of the ministries of the Chapel of the Cross, our parish has undertaken bold and exciting endeavors not only to allow for the future but also to improve what we have to offer today.

With our most recent annual giving campaign, the parish was able to add a full-time fourth clergy member, provide for our dedicated staff, and increase our level of outreach beyond our parish walls. We also have gone forward with replacing the chapel organ with a new instrument capable of contributing appropriately to our chapel services. In addition, we have embarked on a master planning process to explore capital improvements capable of enhancing our parish ministries through this century and beyond.

Our vestry has specifically considered whether or not we are able to undertake all this progress at once, and has determined that we should proceed in every avenue. A five-year projection by our finance committee demonstrates that we can maintain our annual budget with modest increases as compared to the significant ones of the past several years. We have received a pledge of $300,000.00 for the new chapel organ, and we have willing and able fund-raisers actively pursuing additional donations from music benefactors outside our parish. In May, the vestry approved investing a portion of our available resources in a master plan that will allow us to understand the realities of improving our facilities.

The resources funding our professional master plan come from undesignated gifts and memorials, and the expenditure does not spend down the investment portfolios that provide income for our annual budget. The return on our investments has consistently outpaced the projections utilized for budget purposes, and we look for this to continue to be the case. What's more, as we work through the master planning process, we will begin designing a capital campaign. This is not to say a major capital expense is a done deal; rather, as we explore the options we have for capital improvement, we also must explore the options we have for funding. The vestry believes that to proceed with these tasks simultaneously allows us to maximize the benefit of our efforts and expenditures and that drawing the work out in successive undertakings would increase the fiscal, physical, and emotional cost of each process.

Should we bury our talents in the ground when we have the ability to support any endeavor that we choose? Our parish has the opportunity to provide for the viability of our present ministries and to prepare the foundation for ministries that will live out our baptismal covenant far into the future. I encourage every parishioner to seize the opportunity for stewardship by looking joyfully to this year's annual giving campaign and by participating earnestly in the master planning process to map a sustainable future for our facilities. Together we can multiply our talents and build our future upon a foundation of rock.

In April the Program Review Committee, a sub-committee of the Next Step Committee, presented to the vestry an interim report containing a roster of parish programs envisioned during the next 20 years. Space limitations prohibit inclusion in the paper edition of Cross Roads; however the full report is available in the version of Cross Roads on the parish Website, www.thechapelofthecross.org.

The Earth Has a "Physical": The Assessment Isn't Good And the Prognosis Depends on Us

Linda B. Rimer, Environmental Stewardship Committee Chair

In Genesis, we read that "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good." Not since this time long ago has the earth, our planet home, had a good physical examination to determine its state of health - until now.

On March 30, 2005, the work of nearly 1,400 experts from 95 countries was published, representing over four years of research. This Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), had several goals: to conduct a global inventory of the state of our planet's ecosystems, to quantify the effect that human activities are having on those ecosystems, and to make suggestions for the future. (http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx)

"At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted."

This statement, accompanying the report, comes from the governing board that guided the Millennium Assessment team. It included representatives of five international conventions, five UN agencies, international scientific organizations, governments, and leaders from the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and indigenous groups.

This article will attempt to describe only the very basic points about this effort, but everyone is encouraged to learn more about this unprecedented report. The obligation is especially great for those of us who believe that God created the earth and all that is part of the earth, and that God has called on us to be good stewards of the world he gave us; that is, to care for and protect the air, water, land, plants and animals in this world (ecosystems). There is another reason; God has commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The negative impacts of failing earthly health will be felt far more quickly and to a greater degree by our 'neighbors' who live in poor, developing countries of the world than by those of us who live in wealthier nations.

As for the basics, this synthesis report is organized around five core questions. (1) How have ecosystems and their services changed? (2) What has caused these changes? (3) How have these changes affected human well-being? (4) How might ecosystems change in the future? (5) What are the implications for human well-being?

To extend the metaphor of humans and health exams, we all are encouraged to have physical examinations on a regular basis. During these visits, our physicians assess the individual systems that, working together, make up the state of our health. These systems include the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nervous, musculoskeletal, and metabolic systems.

Likewise, this international team of scientists studied the "ecosystems" that, working together, make up the health of our planet and support human existence on the planet through the "ecosystem services" they provide.

An ecosystem is "a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and microorganism communities and the nonliving environment interacting as a functional unit." (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, p. 9). Ecosystem services, as the term implies, are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include:

• Provisioning services, such as food, water, timber and fiber
• Regulating services that affect climate, floods, disease, wastes and water quality
• Cultural services that provide recreational, aesthetic, and spiritual benefits
• Supporting services such as soil formation, photosynthesis, and nutrient cycling.

And while obviously not a religious document in any sense of the word, the Millennium Assessment - like the Bible that describes God's creation as including all plants, animals and humans, assumes that "people are integral parts of ecosystems and that a dynamic exists between them and other parts of ecosystems." (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, p. 9)

The MA Synthesis Report highlights four main findings:

• Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the last 50 years than in any other period. More land was converted to cropland in the 30 years after 1950 than in the 150 years between 1700 and 1850. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, first made in 1913, ever used on the planet have been used since 1985. Experts say that this has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in diversity of life on earth, with some 10 - 30% of the mammal, bird and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.
• Ecosystem changes that have contributed substantial net gains in human well-being and economic development have been achieved at growing costs in the form of degradation of other services.
• The degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during the first half of this century, creating huge barriers to important societal goals established by world leaders meeting at the UN in 2000, such as the eradication of hunger and poverty, improved health for the world's population, and environmental protection.
• The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands, can be met under some scenarios involving significant policy and institutional changes. However, these changes will be large and are not currently under way.

The MA Board of Directors concludes that it is possible to ease the strains that we are putting on natural systems, while continuing to use them to improve living standards for all people. They further conclude that it will take "radical changes in the way nature is treated . . . and new ways of cooperation between government, business and civil society. The warning signs are there for all of us to see. The future now lies in our hands."
http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/Article.aspx?id=58

Junior choir ribbons awarded

At the 9:00 a.m. service on Sunday, June 5, the members of the Junior Choir were recognized and thanked for their faithful ministry of music during the academic year. After serving for two years, choristers are awarded crosses and red ribbons. Ribbons are changed to purple after four years in the choir.

ASKED AT THE CHURCH DOOR

Q : Nowadays small children can receive communion: why do they no longer wait until after Confirmation?

Stephen Elkins-Williams' reply: Some history is helpful here. In the early days of Christianity, people were received into the Church through Baptism, the laying on of hands by elders (Confirmation), and participation in the breaking of bread (Holy Eucharist). Of these three sacraments of initiation, only the last was repeatable.

After Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th Century encouraging others to do so as well, the Church faced a logistical challenge: how to initiate in greater numbers? In the Eastern Church, the bishops delegated the priests to baptize and confirm and even admit infants to the Eucharist. That practice continues to this day. In the West, the bishops directed the priests to baptize and admit to communion, but to defer Confirmation until a bishop could travel there himself. Confirmation, then, was separated from Baptism and evolved into a sacrament of maturation.

In England in the Middle Ages, Holy Eucharist was also separated from Baptism as a tool of ecclesiastical reform (not for theological reasons). People were not allowed to receive communion until they had studied their faith and been confirmed, thus providing a needed renewal of the Church. That practice continued through the Church of England and into the Episcopal Church until only a few decades ago. Confirmation was considered to be what made one a full member of the Church.

With the liturgical renewal movement of the 20th Century based on historical studies and resulting, in the Episcopal Church, in the 1976 Book of Common Prayer, Baptism was again placed at the center of things. Anyone who is baptized is considered a full member of the Church and eligible to receive communion. Confirmation is recommended as a "mature, public affirmation" of one's faith but is placed in the Prayer Book among "Pastoral Offices" and not required.

Theoretically, then, even babies are allowed to receive communion, as they are in the Orthodox Church. In practice, clergy generally encourage parents to include their children in communion when they are interested enough to ask to be and when they have some rudimentary sense that this is a unique and special way for Jesus to be present with us. Just as, through participating regularly in Thanksgiving dinner, children grow into a deepening sense of its meaning, so too do they do so with active participation in the Eucharist. This strengthens them throughout their formation as Christians and nourishes them with God's sacramental presence.

If you have a particular question you'd like addressed in this column,
please send it to info@thechapelofthecross.org

Summertime hospitality

Summer traditions of parish breakfasts, dinner-on-the-grounds, and the parish barbeque continue in July and August.

Parish breakfasts are scheduled for July 10 and August 7 between the 8:00 and 10:00 services. A full breakfast will be available for $3.00 ($1.00 for children 5 - 10; no charge for children under 5.)

The next dinner-on-the-grounds is scheduled for July 24 following the 10:00 service. It's pot luck; bring a dish that will feed your family with some to spare. Grandmother's famous fried chicken? A cool summer salad? Your own special pecan pie? The parish will provide lemonade and iced tea.

The annual parish barbeque is scheduled for August 28 following the 5:15 service. More information to follow.

These relaxed meals provide a chance to meet and visit with fellow parishioners; come for any or all of these summer events.